Chapter 597: Live On in My Place

On the dim, narrow street, a faint breeze stirred the debris on the ground, yet not a sound could be heard. It was as if the silence itself was bracing for what was about to happen, carrying an unsettling, murderous stillness.

Huá Sāng stared at the grotesquely shaped figures—beings she could no longer be sure were even human—closing in on her with terrifying speed, encircling her. Her breathing grew labored and heavy.

The moment she laid eyes on those figures, she understood. They were, like her senior brother, victims deeply poisoned by the Esoteric Society.

The two sides stood in a brief, tense standoff. The air itself seemed to solidify, filling mouths and noses, flooding into lungs, suffocating.

Although Huá Sāng hadn’t yet figured out how she had managed to cross the invisible barrier separating this area from Sleepless Street, she knew perfectly well that her current situation was dire.

It was like an armored, helmeted turtle stumbling into a pack of bloodthirsty beasts. Under the relentless onslaught of sharp fangs and claws, either her shell would be torn to shreds, or the beasts’ teeth and talons would shatter.

One side would inevitably pay in blood.

Just as the encirclement was shrinking, the tension stretched to its breaking point, and a brutal battle was about to erupt, a young girl suddenly burst out from the crowd, placing herself squarely between Huá Sāng and the Esoteric Society members.

“Wait, it’s a misunderstanding, a misunderstanding! She’s one of us!” Lu Yibei explained, facing the leading Esoteric Society member. “An Qi, she’s my bestie, she’s a Society member too.”

To be honest, running into Huá Sāng in this godforsaken place, at such a delicate moment, gave Lu Yibei a massive headache.

Having hidden Fang Ji in the chaos and successfully blended into a group of Esoteric Society members to join their hunt for “Gu Qianqian,” Lu Yibei’s experience had been going quite well.

She had been planning to just muddle through, subtly probing these Esoteric Society members for information, until the Great Pure Palace discovered the anomaly here and broke the blockade the Pink Fluffy Bunny had created using the Divine Land, and then happily turn on them.

It would also allow her to improve her skill at infiltrating illegal psychic energy organizations, preparing for a future chance to sneak into the Eclipse Society and investigate the whereabouts of her old man’s remnant soul.

In fact, using the memories she’d gained from the Diamond-Ring Girl, she had even begun to establish friendships with a few Esoteric Society members. She just needed a little more time to start extracting information.

When the moment came, to heartlessly capsize that freshly built little boat of friendship and coldly toss out a line like, “Sorry, I’m an undercover agent!” wouldn’t that be wonderful?

But Huá Sāng’s sudden appearance had thrown her plan into immediate disarray.

————

Miss, who the heck are you?

And who’s your bestie?

Huá Sāng, her face full of bewilderment, looked at the girl blocking her path. She tilted her head, her thin lips parting slightly. “I…”

The instant she uttered that single word, Lu Yibei whirled around and rapped her sharply on the head, hurting her own small hand in the process.

“You what? Wasn’t it your own idea to join me on this mission, to see the world? So why are you so late? What happened to you?”

For a split second, Huá Sāng was utterly stupefied by Lu Yibei’s actions. But quickly, catching Lu Yibei’s fleeting, eyebrow-waggling expression, a flicker of understanding dawned.

“…”

Is this young lady trying to help me out of a jam?

Indeed, the psychic energy fluctuations of these Esoteric Society members are significant. If conflict breaks out, I’m afraid it’ll be hard to hold on until Shifu arrives with reinforcements…

Still, why is she helping me?

After a brief silence, Huá Sāng decided to play along with the girl in front of her and decide her next move based on how the situation developed.

“Uh, sorry, you know me, I’m a huge procrastinator.”

Hearing this, Lu Yibei secretly breathed a sigh of relief, then shot her an affirmative glance.

She liked dealing with clever people. If she’d run into a stubborn mule like Gu Qianqian, that person would definitely be shouting denials by now, completing the self-destruct sequence and scoring a double kill for them both.

As Huá Sāng’s words faded, a man with a “built-in-speaker” leaned close to the phone-head woman called An Qi and whispered a few words.

Although the man wasn’t a disciple of the Great Pure Palace, his family elders had connections there, leading him to frequently visit. He had met Huá Sāng once and heard rumors about her—she was a remarkably odd woman of the Great Pure Palace, famous for embodying laziness, procrastination, and utter uselessness all at once.

And such a person was also the easiest type to become a disciple of the Esoteric Society.

After listening to the man, An Qi nodded thoughtfully. Her gaze settled on Huá Sāng for a moment, then flicked towards Lu Yibei, her chin tilting slightly upwards.

“You say she’s also a Society member? How do you prove it? Empty words are no good; you need some evidence to make it believable, right?”

Although she had hit it off well with Lu Yibei earlier, on this matter, she didn’t trust Lu Yibei blindly.

“Evidence… uh, of course there’s evidence!” Lu Yibei steeled herself. “Think about it, An Qi! This area blockaded to catch Gu Qianqian contains the power of that great lord. Ordinary folk couldn’t possibly slip in unless they carried that great lord’s grace, right?”

Although Lu Yibei didn’t know how Huá Sāng got in, nor if her own nonsense could fool them, still…

She couldn’t just watch her get killed, could she?

What if they got lucky and it worked? The worst outcome was being exposed on the spot by the lurking Hu Chuan, plunging them back into danger.

It’s just too difficult! How many excellent undercover agents have been killed by these chance encounters with acquaintances! Lu Yibei thought.

Hearing these words, Huá Sāng’s eyes flickered almost imperceptibly.

Only by carrying the grace of the entity that created this abnormal area, can one enter here?

She grasped the crucial information in Lu Yibei’s words.

Seeming to find some logic in Lu Yibei’s argument, An Qi pondered for two seconds and nodded. “And? What is her token of grace?”

The token of grace is… Lu Yibei glanced at Huá Sāng from the corner of her eye, her gaze quickly sweeping over her. Her eyes landed on the ferule in Huá Sāng’s hand. She reached out, grabbed Huá Sāng’s wrist, and lifted her hand slightly higher.

“This is it!”

“Oh?” The light on the phone screen atop An Qi’s head flickered. She stepped closer, carefully examining Huá Sāng’s ferule. Then, the phone screen went dark as if closing its eyes, and she extended both hands, stroking back and forth over it, as if quietly sensing something.

In the darkness, the gazes of the black figures standing along the undulating silhouettes of the buildings all converged on those hands, slightly deformed from adapting to phone use.

They silently mustered their psychic energy, quietly awaiting the result, ready to fight at any moment, or to welcome a new comrade.

Lu Yibei’s heart raced, her nerves stretched taut to their limit, prepared for the lie to be exposed and a fight to break out at any second.

You’re a phone-head, huh? Phone-dependent, huh? Push me too far, and I’ll smash your chip!

After a long moment, An Qi withdrew her hands. A smile emoji appeared on the phone screen above her head. Facing Huá Sāng, she said, “Welcome to the Society!”

On this ferule, she had indeed sensed the presence of that great lord, and it was remarkably intense.

As her words fell, a scattering of welcoming voices rose from the surrounding crowd.

“Phew…” Lu Yibei exhaled a long-held breath of relief, grabbed Huá Sāng’s hand, and started walking towards the crowd.

Illegal psychic-organization infiltration proficiency +1.

Watching Lu Yibei and Huá Sāng walk into the crowd, An Qi quietly crooked a finger at the man with the “built-in speakers” and beckoned him to her side. In a low voice, she said, “In a bit, find a few people and keep a close eye on them.”

The man froze for a moment, then asked in surprise, “But didn’t you just say there was nothing wrong with them?”

“For now, it only looks like there’s nothing wrong,” An Qi said flatly.

Although that ferule did indeed carry the aura of that lord’s grace, she still did not dare be one hundred percent certain. Since she could not confirm that the other party was an enemy, she could only acknowledge her as a companion for the time being.

After all, Gu Qianqian was still hidden in the shadows, waiting for her chance to act. If two more enemies of considerable strength appeared at a time like this, the situation would become extremely troublesome.

She had also tried contacting Hu Chuan to confirm Huá Sāng’s identity. With her phone integrated into her body, she could complete a call with Hu Chuan without anyone noticing.

However, she received no response…

————

“How many times have I told you? Stop dragging your feet all the time. When are you going to fix that bad habit of yours? See? Something went wrong this time, didn’t it? At least the misunderstanding got cleared up. If it hadn’t, I’d like to see what you would’ve done!”

As Lu Yibei scolded Huá Sāng, she used the chance while holding her hand to write three characters in her palm.

“Wang,” “bu,” “xing”!

The “liu” in “Wang-bu-liu-xing” had a few too many strokes; it was troublesome to write and might be misread, so she simply left it out.

Feeling the path Lu Yibei’s fingertip traced across her palm, Huá Sāng recognized the three characters she had written. She froze for a moment, then looked at Lu Yibei’s profile, her feelings gradually growing complicated.

Weren’t they hunting you down?

How did you manage to blend in with them without being exposed?

Huá Sāng’s mind was full of question marks. This situation reminded her of a saying—”In the pouring rain, a Night Parade of a Hundred Ghosts goes by, and someone hidden among them is even happier than the ghosts!”

But very soon, all the question marks in her mind vanished.

She witnessed with her own eyes the entire process of Lu Yibei gradually getting acquainted with a group of Esoteric Society members.

Through the objects fused into those Esoteric Society members’ bodies, Lu Yibei keenly guessed their interests, then quickly opened up topics based on those interests.

That much was still within the realm of normal. Huá Sāng felt she could do the same herself.

What was outrageous was that, whether it was figurines, electronic devices, junk food, swords, clay sculptures, or even insect specimens, Lu Yibei seemed especially familiar with all of them. She could always chat enthusiastically with those people, and before anyone realized it, she had gained their goodwill.

It felt as if, in her past life, she had never done anything proper at all, and had spent all her time letting idle hobbies sap her will.

But in fact, doing this was not difficult. One only needed a slight understanding of the things those Esoteric Society members were obsessed with.

For example, if someone loved the game “XX” to the point of madness, then just saying, “So you play ‘XX’ too?!” would have a very high chance of making that person launch into an endless one-sided monologue.

Lu Yibei actually had not done much. She merely showed, in an exceptionally genuine and natural way, that she loved those things too. Most of the time she was only listening, and only occasionally would she accurately catch the other person’s hot button and, based on her shallow understanding of those things, give some positive feedback.

And then…

She gained the preliminary goodwill of a whole crowd of Esoteric Society members.

Lu Yibei: “…” Aside from being obsessed to the point of madness with certain objects, these guys are actually pretty simple. When I suddenly turn on them later, a lot of them are definitely going to have their defenses shattered, aren’t they?

Tsk, now I almost feel bad about it…

————

After who knew how long he had been unconscious, Fang Ji slowly woke up.

Before he even opened his eyes, an indescribable foul stench forced its way into his nostrils, and he felt waves of pressure pressing down on his body.

It felt as though he were lying in a pile of rotting corpses.

He abruptly opened his eyes, and then discovered that he was indeed lying in a pile of corpses—only, they were fresh corpses.

Corpses Lu Yibei had killed not long ago, enough to heap into a small mountain.

He was pressed at the very bottom, almost fused together with them.

A shattered head, covered in sticky white fluid, was right beside him, face to face, eye to eye.

In his panic, Fang Ji instinctively wanted to struggle to his feet, only to suddenly discover that his body could not move at all.

Thirty-six instances of The Midnight Watchers Society’s No. 3 sealing spell formation did not consume much psychic energy individually, but clearly, stacked together, their effect was outstanding!

Facing the Esoteric Society members who had suddenly erupted into action, as well as all manner of objects whistling toward them, Lu Yibei had no confidence that she could guarantee Fang Ji’s safety.

Corpses were not objects. Hiding Fang Ji in the corpse pile was the best solution she could think of in that brief moment of crisis.

If they were lucky, both of them would be unharmed. If their luck was a little worse, there was still a good chance at least one of them would survive.

However.

For Fang Ji, this method brought an extreme experience of terror, as if he had woken up after being buried alive.

A mountain of incomplete limbs, an indescribable bloody stench in the air, face after face dead with eyes wide open…

In the midst of it all, Fang Ji felt as if electricity were coursing through his entire body. Waves of tingling numbness spread through him, and he trembled uncontrollably. His heart pounded violently, as if it were about to burst through his throat. He opened his mouth, wanting to scream, but not a single sound came out.

Soon, under such intense stimulation, his consciousness began to grow hazy.

Gradually, the things before his eyes became blurred and illusory, and something surfaced in front of him.

It was as if he saw the past.

He saw his past in that small town where sunlight never appeared, where everything in sight was overgrown with dark-green mycelium.

Back then, it seemed he had already died once. Broken and ruined, he had been casually discarded among piles of corpses, just like now.

The reason he had been able to survive was entirely because of that golden light he had seen in his dream when he fell unconscious at Qingnang Cottage not long ago.

In a daze, he once again saw that golden light, and beneath its glow, a figure as beautiful as the morning light of early spring.

Just like last time, that figure whispered something to him, as if recounting the story of someone’s entire life, so long that it made one drowsy.

But this time was different. This time, he finally caught one sentence that was relatively clear.

“Live on in my place. Don’t look for the Holy Relic. It’s a conspiracy…”